Reviewer: Parthiv Mehta, MBBS, MD (Baystate Medical Center)
Description: This book is dedicated to the point-of-care ultrasonography of both commonly encountered and rarely seen painful pathological conditions. It also includes access to an online and an easily downloaded ebook version that features cross-linked pages, references, and easy navigation.
Purpose: Going beyond traditional anatomy, this book seeks to familiarize readers with topics seldom covered in conventional books by presenting detailed sonographic-anatomic correlates in a systematic and easy-to-understand manner. The purpose is to educate readers about the importance of high-quality and focused point-of-care ultrasonography. Given the push for radiologists to deliver value over volume, the information in this book will be helpful to radiologists and clinicians alike.
Audience: The preface suggests that the author has clinicians and nonradiologists in mind as an audience. However, the concepts and conditions covered are appropriate primarily for musculoskeletal radiologists, general radiologists, and radiology residents. Experienced technologists and a specialized subset of clinicians already trained in ultrasonography, such as orthopedic surgeons, emergency department physicians, and rheumatologists, also will benefit from reading this book. The book may not serve the needs of clinicians unfamiliar with ultrasonography and looking to provide point-of-care services to their patients.
Features: The book is divided into 10 sections based on anatomic regions and describes 132 painful conditions that can not only be diagnosed by ultrasonography, but also are amenable to sonographic-guided interventions. The description of each condition includes anatomic considerations, clinical correlates, ultrasound technique, and clinical pearls. Where appropriate, the book addresses expected complications of particular interventional procedures. The book also includes brief overviews of physical diagnostic tests relevant for assessing painful conditions, enabling better clinical correlation. The text is concise and focused, and each disease process is also elucidated by several anatomic and sonographic images. Procedural visuals depicting patient positioning, probe placement, and needle direction are high yield and seldom covered in other, similar books. In addition to sonographic images, the book provides CT, MR, and radiographic images that enable radiologists to correlate pathologies across the imaging spectrum. Over 2,000 conventional ultrasound images and anatomic drawings appear in the book. The author is not a radiologist, but a clinician with a deep understanding of physical diagnosis and imaging correlates. The book does not fully explain the imaging technique or finer nuances of ultrasonography. However, the content of each case and the manner in which it is presented balance this drawback, provided the readers are experienced sonographic operators.
Assessment: This is an excellent resource for individuals learning about point-of-care sonographic diagnosis and intervention for painful conditions. The discussions of expected imaging findings together with anatomic and clinical correlates are extremely helpful in understanding the disease processes and their presentations. The information about real-time sonographic interventions is inadequate for inexperienced operators, but is immensely helpful for trained radiologists and clinicians skilled at ultrasonography. Overall, this is an excellent reference and an interesting read.
'an easily downloaded ebook version that features cross-linked pages, references, and easy navigation'' beyond traditional anatomy '' detailed sonographic-anatomic correlates in a systematic and easy-to-understand manner.''description of each condition includes anatomic considerations , clinical correlates , ultrasound technique, and clinical pearls ''text is concise and focused , and each disease process is also elucidated by several anatomic and sonographic images''an excellent resource for individuals learning about point-of-care sonographic diagnosis and intervention for painful conditions'-Doodys Publishers' Club, Friday, June 24, 2016
